Job Cuts on Fewer Chopper Sales

(Milwaukee, Wisconsin) Motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson announced today that it will cut 730 jobs, about eight percent of its workforce.

Chief Executive Jim Ziemer said he hoped employees would take retirement packages.

He says there will be 370 union production jobs cut in the next few months. That’s because the company is reducing bike shipments because of sales declines in the weakening U.S. economy. Ziemer says 80 percent of those cuts will be in York [PA].

Harley also has plants in Kansas City and Wisconsin. Ziemer says it’s not clear how many jobs will be lost in those places.

Harley’s also cutting 360 nonproduction jobs, and Ziemer says many of those will be at headquarters in Milwaukee.

Harley-Davidson, stock symbol HOG, will sell 27,000 fewer bikes this year than last.

Therefore, poor sales will cause a few hundred workers in Pennsylvania to be bitter about losing their jobs and to grab their guns and Bibles for comfort. What the laid-off workers in Kansas City and Wisconsin plan on doing about their bitterness has not been declared.